[Excerpted] KALU VALLEY, Afghanistan — If there is a road to a happy ending in Afghanistan, much of the path may run underground: in the trillion-dollar reservoir of natural resources — oil, gold, iron ore, copper, lithium and other minerals — that has brought hopes of a more self-sufficient country, if only the wealth can be wrested from blood-soaked soil....

...Further, a proposed mining law vital to attracting foreign investment is up in the air, with the delay threatening several projects. The cabinet rejected it this summer, saying it was too generous to Western commercial interests. But some Western officials fear other motives are at work, too, including an internal fight for spoils, and perhaps an effort by some neighboring countries to sway sympathetic officials to keep Indian and Chinese state mining companies out....

Majia here: Read between the lines. A proposed mining law "vital to attracting foreign investment" means that it essentially makes it easy for foreign companies to come in and extract Afghanistan's wealth.

Apparently some in Afghanistan aren't too keen on that scenario. Maybe the Chinese and Indian companies are promising Afghanistan officials a sweeter deal than western interests? Western officials "fear" that outcome. The gold and other resources need to be reserved for western companies.

The article notes approvingly that "An investment consortium arranged by JPMorgan Chase is mining gold."

I'm not claiming that foreign direct investment by western companies is inherently bad. However, ever heard of the "resource curse"? 

Poor countries with coveted resources rarely come out ahead when their spoils are exploited by foreign interests....